MANCHESTER, NH – A Superior Court judge rejected a negotiated plea that called for no jail time for a man accused of posting nude photos of his former roommate, taken in a hack, to the internet.
Judge N. William Delker, presiding Friday in Hillsborough County Superior Court Northern District, rejected the plea in the case of Riley McAroy, 23, of 274 Amherst St., Apt 3, charged with computer-related offenses, a class B felony, which carries a 3 ½ to 7-year prison sentence. The negotiated plea was to a misdemeanor count of computer-related offenses with a 12-month suspended sentence.
He said the case called for jail time because, according to a police affidavit, McAroy obtained nude photographs of two women – his former roommate and a woman he worked with three years earlier. McAroy, the judge said, paid someone to hack into both women’s accounts and forward him nude photos of them.
According to the affidavit of Goffstown police detective Jason H. Ouellette, a woman told police on Jan. 25, 2021, she received an Instagram text message from McAroy asking for her link to her webpage on OnlyFans where people earn money from fans who subscribe to their content.
The woman told Ouellette the site contained some revealing photos of her but none in which her face was shown. She refused to give McAroy access because he made her uncomfortable.
Later he told her, “Never mind, found some stuff on you anyway.” He then sent her a photo in which she was topless. The woman told police the photo was taken at a nude beach in June 2020. That photo, she said, was not on OnlyFans but saved on her Snapchat account. She said Snapchat alerted her a while ago that her account had been hacked.
She told McAroy she did not want the photo put on the internet, said he had no right to pass it on and that she would call police. “Nothing is going to happen,” he told her and then blocked her from his Instagram.
Police spoke to McAroy who said he met a guy on a site called 4chan who posted, “If you want to get into someone’s Snapchat account contact me on KIK messenger.”
McAroy said he doesn’t have any information on the guy because he deleted the KIK messenger application. He paid the 4chan guy to hack into the woman’s account and that of a woman he worked with about three years ago at Market Basket, Nashua/Merrimack. He wanted the pics of his former co-worker because she was “hot” he told the detective.
In all, he obtained 20 photos of the Goffstown woman and 10 photos of the former co-worker.
The Goffstown woman discovered the nude photos of herself on anonib.com, a site for pornographic images posted anonymously. That was upsetting and concerning to her, she told police, and was especially an issue in the future when applying for jobs.
McAroy, Ouellette wrote, admitted he uploaded the photos to anonib.com. He did not upload the co-worker’s pictures, however.
Delker set a status hearing for 10 a.m. on Sept. 24. In the interim, assistant Hillsborough County Attorney Jonathan M. Raiche and defense attorney Richard E. Samdperil are to renegotiate the plea or decide to take the case to trial. Delker said he would not accept any plea that did not contain a jail sentence.
